Just 13 games into 2026, the Astros are seeing a repeat of last year's woes

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Four more games remain on this rancorous road trip, but this club must hope rock bottom already arrived Wednesday afternoon, when Jake Meyers grabbed his right side and Cristian Javier summoned an athletic trainer within five minutes of one another. The subsequent seven frames felt formulaic, completed by a collection of players that seemed deflated by a depressing dose of déjà vu. “It’s hard. You don’t want to get any of your players hurt,” franchise cornerstone Jose Altuve said. “We felt bad individually for them. We know how hard they’re working to stay healthy and you feel really bad. At the same time, you have to continue the game, but it just sucks that happened to them.” Not since Altuve’s rookie season in 2012 had the Astros been swept in a three-game series at Coors Field. Houston was still a National League team then. It fancies itself an American League contender these days, even if nothing about this series suggested as much. Colorado outscored the Astros 23-9. “We got to flush this quickly,” said manager Joe Espada, a mild-mannered man who almost always exudes positivity. After a wretched Wednesday afternoon, Espada turned terse, offering 84 words worth of responses to five postgame questions. Of the two players he lost to injury in an instant: “It’s not what I want to see,” he said. “It’s just hard. It’s hard. It’s hard.” Six-month seasons rarely spiral out of control in April. Espada’s first Astros team proved it. That club captured an American League West title after starting the season 12-24. This one is 6-7. The defending division champion Seattle Mariners, who the Astros will face for four games this weekend, sit at 4-9. An eternity remains in the season, however enraging this week has felt. Maybe, months from now, it will be remembered as a nadir not the start of something worse. “I trust these guys,” Espada said. “They know how to do it. They know how to do it.” Still, injuries to Javier and ace Hunter Brown have Houston’s rotation in tatters, applying stress on a group of relievers that can’t shoulder it. Only one bullpen in the sport (Tampa Bay) boasts a higher ERA than Houston’s 7.09 mark. None have issued more walks than the 36 handed out by Astros relievers. Fill-in closer Bryan Abreu issued two in mop-up duty, prolonging his pitiful beginning to the season and underscoring the massive void left by six-time All-Star Josh Hader. Beginning a stretch of 13 consecutive games on Friday will only exacerbate the problem. Brown is nursing a Grade 2 shoulder strain and won’t pitch in any of them. It’s difficult to envision Javier will, either, after exiting Wednesday’s game with what the Astros described as right shoulder tightness. “I’m very disappointed,” Javier said through an interpreter. “We had lost the last two games and then the bullpen had been used a lot. I felt like the team needed me out there.” Javier, who underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2024, said he felt tightness while recording his final out of the first inning. After throwing a warmup pitch prior to the second, Javier called catcher Christian Vázquez to the mound and summoned athletic trainers from Houston’s dugout. He left the field after a brief conversation. Initial strength tests performed after his departure “came out very good,” according to Javier, though he added “we want to look at it more deeply.” Javier said he hadn’t discussed his next steps, or whether he would accompany the Astros to Seattle on the final leg of this 10-game road trip. Five minutes before Javier took the mound for that ill-fated warmup pitch, Meyers held his right side after a check swing. Espada and a trainer visited the center fielder, who took a practice swing and deemed himself ready to continue the at-bat. “Took a harder (check-swing) and it tightened up more,” Meyers said. Meyers said he will travel back to Houston, undergo imaging and visit team doctors. A stint on the injured list seems almost guaranteed, which will expose more problems. The Astros have one healthy position player on their 40-man roster who is not in the major leagues: infielder Shay Whitcomb, whom the team has all but avoided playing whenever he is summoned as a roster filler. Veteran outfielder Taylor Trammell, who was scratched from Triple-A Sugar Land’s lineup on Wednesday afternoon, is the most logical choice to replace Meyers if a roster move must be made. Prospect Brice Matthews, a converted infielder, could be in line for more outfield at-bats if Meyers misses time. Ditto for Joey Loperfido. “The injuries have piled on and it’s not a good feeling, but if there’s a team that knows how to bounce back, it’s this group in there,” Espada said. Scoring two runs across the final 18 frames inside a hitter’s paradise casts a pall on this positive, but the Astros do still boast baseball’s highest-scoring offense. It is perhaps the sole reason they’re just one game under .500. Maintaining that is mandatory given the mess that is Houston’s pitching staff. As of Wednesday morning, the team planned to deploy a six-man rotation following Thursday’s off day, even in Brown’s absence. Whether Javier’s injury will alter the idea is unclear. Tatsuya Imai is scheduled to start on Friday against the Mariners and Lance McCullers Jr. will pitch on Saturday. Anything beyond that is ambiguous. Spencer Arrighetti should play a prominent role. Peter Lambert, Colton Gordon and Jason Alexander could, too. Long relievers Ryan Weiss and Kai-Wei Teng, acquired this offseason to offer depth for situations like this, could be stretched out to start. Enough available bodies exist to fill the void. Few of them can equal the upside of Brown, a reigning American League Cy Young Award finalist, or Javier, who has proven in the past he can function as a top-end starting pitcher. He posted a 2.45 ERA in 2022 and started two combined no-hitters. Allowing Framber Valdez to leave in free agency this winter only heightened the need for Javier to bounce back — and perhaps accentuated the Astros’ faith that he could. General manager Dana Brown, in his final season under contract, added six pitchers this winter to protect himself against the alternative. He is about to see whether it worked. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Chandler Rome is a Staff Writer for The Athletic covering the Houston Astros. Before joining The Athletic, he covered the Astros for five years at the Houston Chronicle. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University. Follow Chandler on Twitter @Chandler_Rome